The diversified health-care company said on Tuesday that it earned $3.8 billion, or $1.33 per share. That compared with $1.41 billion, or 50 cents per share, in the year-earlier period, when J&J took $2.2 billion in charges for the writedown of research assets, litigation expenses and merger-related costs.

Excluding special items, J&J earned $1.48 per share, up from $1.30 a share in the year-earlier period.

Analysts had expected the company to report earnings excluding items of $1.39 a share on $17.71 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.